


Two Lovers Together

by quirkysubject



Series: For The Day I Take Your Hand [5]
Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Banter, Boys In Love, Cats, Comfort, Cuddling, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Freddie Mercury Lives, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Internal Monologue, Introspection, Jealousy, M/M, Open Relationships, POV Freddie Mercury, Pining, Relationship Negotiation, Reminiscing, Talking, garden lodge, ghosts from the past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:34:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28171008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quirkysubject/pseuds/quirkysubject
Summary: February 1988. Freddie misses Roger.~~~My fandom anniversary fic. Thanks everyone for the welcome! 💖
Relationships: Freddie Mercury/Roger Taylor
Series: For The Day I Take Your Hand [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1707946
Comments: 186
Kudos: 65





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For those who don't know _For The Day I Take Your Hand_ , here's a brief summary of the state of things:  
> Queen is still Queen, Freddie hasn’t contracted HIV, and he and Roger have been a couple for about six years now (depending on how you count). They have been outed in 1986. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who sent in prompts for a possible follow-up! They've been great inspiration, and I wish I could have used them all! So, which one did I end up writing? Eh, you'll see 😊 All shall be revealed in the end notes to this chapter (no peeking!) 😉
> 
> Additional thanks and kudos to @nastally for beta-reading! 🙏💖

#### London, February 1988

An endless afternoon bleeds into an indeterminate evening trickles into the bottomless chasm of the night.

No, ‘chasm’ is too dramatic, with its promise of horror and turmoil. A coal pit, that’s more like it, grimy and meandering and dull beyond words.

Freddie turns his head back to the television to see if the situation there has improved since he last looked. But no. Yet another Austrian with a ridiculous name hurling himself down a ski slope studded with orange poles. Left-right-left-right, like a windscreen wiper in a downpour.

It’s all very exciting, Joe had assured him as he turned on the telly, and since Freddie was going to play a part in the Summer Olympics in four years, it felt appropriate that he should cultivate an interest in the event. To be fair, the backside view of the bob-sledding teams in their starting positions had provided some entertainment. But this?

A glance at the armchair next to him confirms it: Even Joe has grown tired of it, head lolling down towards his chest.

Freddie could switch channels. Or better yet, he could make Joe get up and switch channels for him. But the mere thought of a chipper game show or a thoughtful feature about the political upheavals in the Soviet Union makes him too depressed to move. He could also go to bed (empty) or fix himself a drink (alone) or sit down at the piano (forlorn). He _could_ rouse Joe and demand they make a night of it, he supposes, a marvellous one by his decree!

Instead, he watches Bernhard Gstrein failing to waggle his way onto the podium.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Only a couple of days ago, they were having a grand old time, right here: he and Peter and Mike at the piano, with Roger and Brian chipping in from the sofa every now and then, and Phoebe serving the most intricate little treats. An almost perfect night - until Brian’s black mood caught up with him and he insisted on driving home in the middle of the night, looking drained and resigned as he waved them good-bye.

They worry about him, all of them, what with his wife and his girlfriend and his father and his kids. A right pickle he is in. At least he started coming round more often instead of holing himself up in a cave somewhere as he used to do, so they get a chance to draw a laugh out of him from time to time. He lets himself be invited to dinner or a small party and sometimes - to everyone’s astonishment - just to putter around the garden for a bit. Phoebe and Joe are happy enough about it, but Freddie had a dreadful fright when he first ran into him with his mittens and earmuffs and safety goggles, thinking he was a burglar digging a hole behind the sitting room wall. Brian had explained what it was for, too, but Freddie had been too busy dragging him into the warmth of the house and yelling for tea to listen.

Sometimes, Brian doesn’t come here, but Roger visits him instead, or they both go out together - probably talking about women and the trouble with them, all the things that Freddie couldn’t possibly understand. As if he didn’t know all about trying to keep a relationship alive long after its sell-by date. About being pulled in two directions at once, knowing full well what is the right thing to do - but stubbornly heading the other way until it’s almost too late. As if he were a stranger to heartbreak and scandal.

He is being horribly unfair, of course. Every friendship is different, each of them giving each other different sorts of comfort. It’s not like he can share everything with Roger, either. There are things about his family he can’t even begin to explain. And even when he tries, as much as Roger wants to understand, there is a certain level at which he just doesn’t get it, while a mere shared glance with Kash over the dinner table contains everything. And isn’t it like that with everyone? John, and Phoebe, and Peter, and Mary, all irreplaceable in their own way, giving him something he could never expect of the others?

So, it’s all very sensible, he tries to console his wounded ego, those guys’ nights out between two old friends. He’s just never done well with being excluded. It would certainly have been nice to have been asked along, even with the implicit understanding that he would decline.

But that’s not all, is it?

He stretches one hand up to the backrest where Goliath is watching over him and rubs his fingers through the soft fur between his ears, taking solace in his predictable deep purr.

Because as much as he tries not to think about it, there is also that other thing which always comes up when Roger goes out without him. Nearing forty and still drawing the eye of every pretty girl in the bar. And Roger never minds having his eye drawn either. He never did. And yet, no matter how much the thought irks Freddie, drives him to pettiness and retribution at times, he can’t deny that it’s all part of the appeal. The fact that Roger is so blatantly attractive, that he has that power to make women - people - want him.

But none of them can hold a candle to what they have. Ruffle your feathers, little birdies, entertain the wishful fantasy, perhaps revel in the glory of his touch for the night, but you can’t have him, because he is mine and _this_ , right here, is where he always comes back to.

As long as he does, a small voice at the back of his head whispers.

He wipes it away with practised ease. Roger could have had it so much easier. Could have had so much _more_. Yet somehow, despite everything, he chose this, Freddie, with all his impossibilities. It seemed inconceivable for so long, and sometimes, when his spirits are low and the shadows rise up from every corner, it seems inconceivable still.

And perhaps tonight is the night when Roger meets the one who will make him realise what he could still have.

Alright, that’s it.

Thoroughly disgusted with himself, Freddie swings himself to his feet and turns the telly off with an imperious flick of the remote.

Joe jerks awake. “Everythin’ alright?” he mumbles, rubbing at his eyes.

Freddie shakes his head. “Go to bed, darling, you look knackered.” He had him up at five to bid on a Goya via telephone, so he really has earned his rest.

“Yeah.” Joe nods drowsily. “Need anything else though?”

“No, thank you.” Freddie walks towards the bay window door that leads out into the garden. “I’m just going to be…” He trails off and finishes with a vague gesture, feeling a bit embarrassed.

“Right.” If Joe thinks him silly, he doesn’t show it. Good man.

Trusty Goliath at his heels, Freddie makes his way through the garden, shivering in the frosty night air. There is something to be said for a coat of fur, he thinks. Although it is a bit of a mystery how cats manage not to burn up whenever they’re inside, how they actively seek out the warmth of the fire or a human lap. Freddie holds open the door to the Mews sitting room for the diminutive cat and watches him scurry inside with a delighted little meow, instantly claiming the off-limits territory of Roger’s armchair.

Superior creatures, certainly.

The house is much smaller than Garden Lodge, especially since they haven’t got around to building the conservatory yet, but it feels more spacious. It’s not that Roger isn’t a collector of pretty things, but his treasured items - apart from his numerous photographs - tend not to be the kind to be put in display cabinets. Cars. Boats.

Notches in his bedpost.

Freddie shakes his head, trying to dislodge the thought. What _is_ the matter with him? For one, it’s very unlikely that Roger is going to meet anyone tonight. And even if he did, why should it bother him so much? Freddie was the one who insisted they should keep this door at least a crack open, after all. They don’t mean anything, those occasional flings, they both agree.

They never do, until one does, don’t they?

Dear lord, he is being insufferable tonight. It’s a blessing that Roger isn’t here to see him like this. With a whispered ‘goodnight’, he leaves Goliath be and makes his way up the stairs.

Roger is with _Brian_ , for God’s sake, whose marriage is in the last gory stages of dissolution. They’ll be emptying a bottle of whiskey in front of the telly. Or perhaps - and this is the absolute height of merriment - do the same thing in a pub, looking glum and talking either not at all or in circles.

The thing is though, that sometimes, after an evening of being miserable, Roger looks for something to pick him up again. And if he comes by a nightclub on the drive home, he might well stop there, just to let the music and the lights wash over him for an hour. And perhaps to catch someone’s eye.

Freddie throws himself face down onto the bed, inhaling deeply, hoping for a trace of Roger’s scent still clinging to the sheets to distract him from his bothersome self. But it seems the linens got freshly changed. Freddie curses their housekeeper’s fastidiousness. Only the quality of the fabric, brushed flannel instead of smooth satin, remains to tell the difference.

It had been a bit of a contentious issue, their sleeping arrangements. Freddie had known from the moment he stepped into the house where he wanted the master bedroom to be, but for some reason he couldn’t (or wouldn’t) explain, Roger had an aversion to the room, although it was the most beautiful one in the house. It was immensely frustrating, but nothing he did - not even giving Roger the unprecedented power to redecorate the room at his own discretion - could sway him.

“It’s too grand,” he would say, “I feel like I’m about to receive a diplomatic envoy from Dubai in my pyjamas.” Or, “It gets too much light in the mornings.” And when Freddie and his interior designer had suggested a dozen changes to respond to all of Roger’s concerns, he had simply shaken his head, taken Freddie aside and said, “It just makes me sad. I don’t know why.”

He had looked so earnest and awkward at the same time that Freddie had refrained from teasing him with tales of the room being haunted by ghosts. Perhaps Roger’s senses, tuned to a different wavelength, _had_ picked up on something Freddie hadn’t. Roger would never admit to such a superstition, of course, despite secretly harbouring a surprising number of them.

And so Freddie had turned the suite into what Roger liked to call his boudoir - a place to sit quietly with friends when the sitting room got too crowded, or to entertain those closest to him - while a guest room got refurbished and promoted to master bedroom. A door was built in to connect it to his suite via the dressing room.

It’s where they spend most nights, although sometimes they end up in the more modest bedroom of the Mews. Freddie is rarely here on his own, preferring to be surrounded by his treasures at the Lodge when Roger is not there. But tonight, he needs the closest thing to him he can get. And who knows, perhaps Roger will come home later instead of kipping at Brian’s, and crawl into bed next to him. He’ll try (and fail) to be quiet despite his tipsy state, and Freddie would lie wide awake, drinking in the comforting sounds, until strong arms curl around him and everything is as it should be again.

Freddie pulls the duvet up around him and lies there in silence, waiting for sleep to come. He listens to the creaks of the old house, feels his heartbeat pick up speed whenever there’s a car pulling into Logan Mews. Trying not to be jealous of Brian, who surely needs Roger more than Freddie tonight.

Or of whoever is having Roger’s attention right now.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Freddie throws the duvet back and jumps out of the bed. This is useless.

He’s about to head back to the main house, to down half a bottle of vodka and noodle around on the piano until his uncooperative brain will agree to shut up and let him go to sleep, when another thought hits him.

He’s given it up - and Roger has forbidden Phoebe and Joe to give him any, no matter how much me might wheedle and cajole them - but surely an exception can be made on a night like this. He doesn’t know exactly where Roger (who has given it up as well, except for when they’ve had a fight, or he’s had a phone call from his father, or the song he knows is right there in his head just won’t come out) hides them, but then, Roger is not very crafty when it comes to these things.

The study is right next door, a comfortable, traditionally furnished room with bookshelves, a desk, and a small sitting area with a drinks cabinet in a corner. There are still some boxes of stuff Roger has never got around to unpacking since he moved in a year ago. Freddie doesn’t have any reason to be in here, so it’s the reasonable place to hide any little secrets.

They’re not in the filing cabinet, but the second desk drawer yields a half-full packet of Marlboro's. Looking for a lighter next, Freddie quickly goes through the other drawers, then looks under the stacks of papers and notebooks that clutter most of the surface. Something silvery catches his eye, but when he pushes aside the writing pad that covers it, he realises it’s not a lighter, but merely the embossed cover of a book.

His quest for the lighter continues for another couple of seconds before the title of the book catches up with him.

He runs his eyes over the silver letters two or three more times to make sure he didn’t misread, but there isn’t much room for error.

**The Joy of Gay Sex**

The cigarettes fall back into the drawer, temporarily forgotten, as Freddie sits down and picks up the book.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The description of the “grand old time” is based on one of the [Garden Lodge Tapes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWpYcm2hqTg), which were actually recorded a bit later than in the story, on February 29th, and didn’t feature Roger. AU, I say :)
> 
> This is based on the prompt **"Freddie discovers Roger's copy of The Joy of Gay Sex".** It happened to be the only prompt that I received twice (by @plainxte and @pumpkinlily 💕 - thank you both so much!). A lot of you also asked for something from Freddie's POV, so I hope this is making you happy too 😊
> 
> Now that the prompt has been revealed, I might change the title of the story when I upload the next chapter. Don't be confused :D


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A special Christmas thank you to @nastally for beta-reading! 😊 Wishing you all a happy and peaceful day 💖🙏

The click of a key turning in the front door jolts Freddie out of his spell, startling him so much he knocks over his thankfully empty brandy tumbler. He scrabbles for it, catching it just in time before it can clatter to the floor, then clutches it in both hands as he sits very still, pulse thrumming in his ears, listening for more sounds.

The door falls closed and a second later there are the twin bangs of Roger’s shoes being kicked off and hitting the wall.

Without thinking, Freddie scrambles to his feet. Heart pounding, he kills the lights, stumbles out of the room and through the corridor in the near darkness. A loose floorboard creaks under his feet as he makes his way to the bedroom, the sound loud in the quiet house. Only when he’s pulled up the duvet around him and he’s lying in the darkness, breath coming hard and fast, does he realise what he is doing.

He is six years old again, a little boy who trespassed on the forbidden grounds of his father’s study because he wanted - needed - to write something with the beautiful silver pen Bomi Bulsara used to sign important documents. Who got too distracted to hear his parents come home early, and spilled the ink all over the leather desk top in his haste to cover his tracks. Who was discovered crouching under the desk because it was too late to run back into his room and pretend to be asleep.

He had almost forgotten about that episode until now. Funny how the mind works.

“Freddie,” a voice drifts up from below. It’s half a shout, half a whisper, the kind of voice one uses to be heard without waking someone who might be asleep.

Freddie stays very still, even while he mentally shakes himself - he hasn’t done anything wrong, this time - but he can’t quite chase the panic away, too rattled is he by the memories and by what he has discovered over the last hour.

Although he still isn’t sure what exactly it is, only that Roger - who took more than two years until he could bring himself to even fuck Freddie - apparently owns a sex manual with extremely graphic pictures and extremely personal anecdotes scribbled into it, in a hand that is not his own. With “reminds me of you” scrawled next to a picture of a blond man screwing the living daylights out of a handsome bloke in a leather harness, and a note dedicated to “my reluctant paramour” tucked away between the pages of an article on rimming, of all things. And he’s kept it a secret from Freddie, hidden away in the one room Freddie has no reason to go into on any normal day.

And here he was, concerned Roger might get entangled with some woman.

This is so much worse.

Roger is shuffling around in the living room, probably stopping to chide Goliath for sneaking onto his arm chair (before petting him and allowing him to stay “as an exception”). Then his footsteps come slowly up the stairs, a bit halting, closer to the bedroom, until the treacherous floorboard just outside creaks again.

Freddie has no idea what he’s going to do next, but he knows one thing deep inside his churning stomach: He can’t face Roger right now. Can’t bear his defensiveness, his explanations, his anger, his remorse, or whatever he decides to give Freddie. He has his back to the door, but still he keeps his eyes shut tightly when he hears it pushed open. He can just about imagine Roger standing there, trying to make him out in the darkness. After a couple of seconds, Roger breathes a quiet sigh, as if of relief, before he tiptoes through the room and into the en-suite bathroom. He can’t have drunk much, if he moves so quietly.

Freddie could leave now, sneak down the stairs and back to Garden Lodge. There he can lock himself in the suite that has never been good enough for Roger, and tell Phoebe and Joe (who at least know the meaning of loyalty) not to let anyone near him. Yes dear, _anyone_.

But now Roger knows he’s here, and when he finds the bed empty, he’ll come after him, and he’ll want to know where he’s going in the middle of the night and why, and it will all descend into mayhem. And as much as that is exactly what Freddie will crave, will _demand_ once he’s over the shock, he can’t stand that now, when he is still feeling so raw and defenceless.

The tap is turned off, and Roger comes back into the bedroom. He changes into his nightwear quickly and then crawls into bed, immediately snuggling close to Freddie. “Sorry I’m late,” he whispers and presses a kiss to the back of Freddie’s neck.

Freddie doesn’t move a muscle as he is embraced by the arms and the scent he’d been longing for only an hour or so ago. There’s a part of him that wants to drown himself in it, even now, and another that feels this is only making the betrayal worse. That Roger can still be everything Freddie wants, despite his deception.

Roger breathes in deeply and pauses for a moment before he lies his head down on the pillow. He must smell the Brandy on him. Perhaps also the half cigarette Freddie smoked with trembling hands before it made him too nauseous.

If he smells that, he’ll know that Freddie has been in his study. That he went through the desk drawers to find the cigarettes. Is it making him nervous? Reminding him of his guilty conscience? But Roger just snuffles and moves back and forth a bit, like he’s trying to find a more comfortable position.

Freddie will have to wait until he’s fast asleep, then extract himself and slink back to Garden Lodge. And then… He can’t think about what then. It’s unthinkable, all of it.

 _Perhaps it’s not what it seems,_ another, mellower side of him, the one that eagerly seeps up Roger’s warmth filling the bed so wonderfully, cautions.

But what else could it be?

The first thing he thought when he saw the title was that Roger had bought the book for himself when things got serious between them. That he got it to learn how to please Freddie better. He’d smiled at the thought, although it seemed a bit out of character, Roger being more of a hands-on than a book-learner. But then, everything about their entire relationship is a bit out of character for him.

Then he’d seen the copious, bawdy annotations, which were clearly not in Roger’s hand.

A gag gift from one of his American friends, Freddie thought. But who would go to the trouble of annotating an entire 200-page book, just for a one-off joke? Especially since most of the annotations weren’t very funny, but entirely practical. And if it had been that, Roger surely would have shared it with Freddie, giggling over the illustrations and suggesting - only half in jest - they’d try out some of the more acrobatic ideas.

Roger has never shown any interest in men aside from him, Freddie reassures himself. The thought that he had conducted a clandestine affair with another man without Freddie ever noticing even the smallest hint is ludicrous.

Although there had been Michael.

> A sculpted body hovering above him, his eyes locked not on Freddie, but on Roger sitting beside the bed.
> 
> “Can I kiss him?”
> 
> Jealousy fights a fierce battle against desire inside him. The urge to lash out at Michael for his impudence versus the thrill of seeing Roger succumb to those desires he pretends he doesn’t have.
> 
> “Yes,” he says, sympathetic to Michael’s longing, and entranced by the sight of Roger’s wide eyes, the bow of his red-bitten lips.
> 
> And then there’s the way Roger looks at Freddie, like he too is asking his permission first.
> 
> After another brief negotiation between the upper half of this complex triangle with Freddie at its base, they finally kiss, his lover and the one he cannot have, lips brushing and tongues teasing, right there above him. It’s like a circuit has been closed and a current runs from Roger through this other man and right into Freddie’s body, making his blood surge with want. He watches entranced, burning up with feelings he can’t name or disentangle, an agonizing jumble of desire and heartache, until it gets too much and Freddie has to pull Michael away, put an end to that lewd display.
> 
> He can’t help wondering after, what would have happened if he hadn’t interrupted.
> 
> Would Roger have balked when it got too heated? Withdrawn, and excused himself to the bathroom for his customary wank that Freddie’s supposed to pretend isn’t happening? Or would he have let himself be drawn in, seduced by Michael’s easy good looks and skilled kisses?
> 
> Could Freddie have endured it? Would he have dared to let his hands wander?
> 
> And would that have hastened things along between them, or heralded tortuous months of threesomes where any touch could be brushed off as accidental, just so they didn’t have to admit to what they really wanted?

The book isn’t Michael’s, Freddie is sure of that. He doesn’t hear a German accent when he reads those annotations. But could there have been someone else? Did Roger _dabble_?

Does he still?

Freddie’s stomach clenches as he imagines a faceless figure writing his messages into the book, taunting Freddie with his words. Is it something recent or does it go as far back as those confused years when everything between them was still unsaid?

Even if it happened years ago, how could Roger not breathe a word of this to him? Even if he never actually did anything with this mysterious man, if it never went beyond fantasy, how could he not mention this? Does he think Freddie wouldn’t understand? They never promised each other fidelity, after all, only honesty.

“You alright,” Roger mumbles, tearing Freddie out of his jumbled thoughts. He sounds like he’s half-asleep already, but still he strokes one hand along the tense muscles of Freddie’s arm.

Although it’s the last thing he wants, something inside Freddie softens at the rough whisper.

Perhaps it was a stalker. Someone writing out all his dirty fantasies, then sending them to Roger. And Roger hiding it so Freddie doesn’t worry. Or it’s a present for him, something Roger picked up second-hand because he thinks it would amuse Freddie.

“Freddie?” Roger sounds a bit more awake now.

Or is he just desperate to make something up to exonerate Roger? Because if it was supposed to be a gift, surely Roger would pick up a new copy, or at least one that is in a less tattered condition. And the writing didn’t sound like the creepy fantasies of a stalker. Apart from that one note, it wasn’t even directed at Roger. It read more like notes to oneself, and sometimes a letter to the editor ( _”Tried this. Does not work.”_).

“Hey.” Roger pushes himself up onto his elbow. “You’re worrying me a bit.” Gentle fingers comb through his hair.

“Fine. Tired,” Freddie grits out, realising just then that this is a stupid thing to say. Because that’s exactly what he always says when he’s _not_ fine and wide awake because of it. “Just… let’s just go to sleep,” he mutters in as conciliatory a tone as he can manage. “ _Please_ ,” he adds when Roger makes no move to lie back down.

That does the trick. But instead of moving back behind him, Roger lies down on his back. Before Freddie can decide whether he’s disappointed or relieved about the distance this puts between them, Roger has taken a hold of his arm and rolled him around without apparent effort. Freddie’s head lands on the soft spot between Roger’s chest and shoulder, and Roger’s arm comes to rest on his waist.

It’s all it takes to get Freddie to the point where he has to choke back tears. He feels so warm and safe this way, this position in which he often drowses off while Roger still reads another couple of pages, glasses perched on his nose, before turning in himself. And yet it’s all false, all a huge lie.

Roger drops a kiss to the crown of his head, sighs contentedly and settles back.

Or is it?

Freddie squeezes his eyes shut, trying to get the cacophony of voices in his head to quiet down. But he just keeps circling through the same thoughts, over and over again.

It’s not that bad - but then why has he hidden it away? It doesn’t mean anything - then why has he taken it with him when he moved? He loves Freddie - but then why didn’t he tell the truth?

“Was there someone else?” The words are out of his mouth before he has a chance to stop them. So much for his plan to wait until Roger has fallen asleep and then hide away in his bedroom for the rest of the year.

“Hmm?” Roger snuffles sleepily.

Freddie could pretend he hasn’t said anything. Could let Roger attribute it to a confused dream as he was falling asleep. But he’s sick of it. Sick of lying here in the dark, getting choked up by anger and resentment, while Roger is peacefully drifting off.

“Was there someone else. Someone other than me,” he repeats, and he feels Roger wake up fully at the venom in his words.

“You mean… what? Freddie, I was with Brian. We… we watched _Upstairs, Downstairs_ repeats.”

It’s the tone in his voice that does it for Freddie, that confused, exasperated, ostentatious display of innocence. “No,” he hisses and pushes himself up to sitting, facing the foot of the bed. “I’m not talking about Brian.”

“Hey.” There’s a rustling of bedclothes behind him that means Roger has shifted onto his elbows. “What’s all this about?”

“Just answer the fucking question.” It’s not Freddie who has to explain himself here. Roger _must_ know what he’s talking about. The fact that he has the gall to pretend he doesn’t, makes Freddie absolutely furious.

There are a few seconds of silence. “You’re not talking about tonight then? Freddie, I thought that we’d agreed… I mean, I thought you knew about-”

There it is. Always the ones he trusts the most wielding the knife. “Knew about what,” he spits, although now that he said it he’s not sure he really wants to know. “Or should I ask who?”

Roger crawls forward on the bed, far enough that he can look at Freddie’s face although Freddie keeps his eyes resolutely away from him. “What, do you want a list of names now? Freddie, it’s been months, back when we were on tour! And also may I remind you that it was _you_ who-”

“I’m not talking about a backstage blowjob or a quickie in the loo of some rotten nightclub, I don’t give a fuck about those,” he hisses, ignoring the fact that he’d been agonizing about those very things only a couple of hours ago.

“What _are_ you talking about then? I-” Roger groans. “Oh Christ, was there something in the papers?” He raises his hand as if he wants to lay it on Freddie’s arm, but then just puts it down close to him on the bed. “You know how they’re always full of shit. I can’t believe you’d buy into that rubbish, whatever it was.”

Enough is enough. He won’t sit here, listening to Roger playing the innocent victim a second longer. “Not the papers,” he snaps, trying to disentangle himself from the sheets as he gets up from the bed.

“What then,” Roger asks, and now his conciliatory tone has sharpened into annoyance. Perhaps suspicion? His guilt finally wearing on him?

Without answering, Freddie marches out of the bedroom and into the study, snatching up the book. When he returns, he throws it onto the bed so hard it bounces off the mattress and lands on the floor.

“Freddie, what the fuck!” Roger shouts. He bends over the edge of the bed to pick up the book. The way he’s cradling it carefully in his hands, as if it were something precious, makes Freddie wish he’d thrown it at his face.

“Who is he,” he demands.

Roger looks at him as if he’s out of his mind, gaze wandering between Freddie and the book. If he dares to pretend he doesn’t know what Freddie is talking about, if he makes up some story about having found it in a yard sale just the other day, Freddie will lose it. “You…” Roger seems lost for words for a minute. “You mean _this_?” He holds up the book.

Freddie doesn’t dignify that with an answer. He just looks on in consternation as Roger, instead of confessing, or apologising, or grovelling at Freddie’s feet - not that it would have made a difference (alright, perhaps a bit of a difference) - puts the book down on the bed, gets up and walks past him.

“Where are you going?”

“I need a smoke,” Roger says, not breaking his stride. “And a drink.”

Freddie can’t believe it. He catches Roger’s wrist, forcing him to stop. “Is this a fucking joke to you?” he asks, struggling to keep his voice under control.

“No.” Roger stops and takes a deep breath. Then he turns towards Freddie, a soft expression on his face. “No, it’s not a joke. I was just… this is the last thing I expected to do tonight. I should have told you sooner, I guess, I just... It’s not _bad_ though,” he adds when he sees Freddie’s dejected expression. He steps closer and turns his wrist until he can squeeze his fingers. “I promise. Will you let me explain it?”

How can Freddie say no to that, and with Roger looking at him like that, so earnest and sincere? He nods, curtly, dreading whatever is going to come next.

“I’ll be right back. Just wait here for a second.”

Freddie has got just enough time to regret his decision to stay and listen to Roger - what can he possibly have to say that will make this better? - before he returns. He’s carrying two tumblers and a bottle of Brandy under his arm, as well as the rest of his cigarettes and an ashtray. “I thought the house smelled of smoke when I came in,” he says as he sits down on the bed and pats the space next to him, wordlessly asking Freddie to join him. “Didn’t just imagine that then.”

If Roger thinks that Freddie is going to apologise for taking a cigarette that Roger is not even supposed to have in the first place, he’s got another thing coming. “Explain it,” he says simply as he remains standing in front of Roger, arms crossed in front of his chest.

Roger pours them both a generous drink and holds one glass out to Freddie. “Sit with me, please. And I’ll explain it all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Freddie's memories refer to a scene from [Chapter 48](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21575575/chapters/52026979) of For the Day I Take Your Hand


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a handful of quotes from "The Joy of Gay Sex" - they're explicit, but in a sex-ed kind of way. I'm also quoting from the 2003 digital edition instead of Roger's 1977 original ;)
> 
> There will also be some references to a minor character death (original character) that happened in the original story.
> 
> As always, thanks and appreciation to @nastally for her comments and insights and sharp eye for details! 💕

“Explain then.” 

Freddie is sitting cross-legged on the bed, a good distance from Roger. He’s dreading his explanation as much as he needs to hear it. How he hopes that Roger will find something to say that will make it all okay again - but as much as he wrecks his brain he can’t imagine what that might be. 

Roger has put the book down between them, looking at it with a thoughtful expression. He’s sitting propped up against the headboard, looking ruffled and soft in his faded white t-shirt and blue-striped shorts. It’s a dangerous, deceptively innocent look, that could easily put Freddie off his guard. He will have to remember to stay on his toes. 

Roger takes a sip of his drink, then another, as if he’s trying to decide where to start. “It belonged to Dino,” he says finally. “He, er. He left it to me, you could say.”

The menacing, faceless figure in Freddie’s mind morphs into a concrete and seemingly harmless shape. A short, dark-eyed Italian-American, always good for a chat about all and nothing, always the life of the party. 

Always a flirty smile for Roger. 

Oh fuck, this is worse. This is so much worse than anything Freddie had imagined. Because that would have been right about the time when he and Roger first got together. And Dino was his friend!

“We weren’t lovers,” Roger says. “If that’s what you think. God, what a strange thing to say.”

It’s what Freddie desperately wants to hear, but he’s not sure he can believe it just like that. It’s too easy. Who would leave a good friend an intimate book like that? And not as a gag gift, but as part of their last will? 

Roger puts his glass away and takes both of Freddie’s hands in his. He looks as serious as Freddie has ever seen him. “Whatever else you think of me, if I had ever done anything that would have put you at risk like that, I’d have told you no matter what.”

It’s only then that Freddie makes the connection. Dino had died of AIDS back in ‘82, before any of them knew what that even meant. All the what-ifs run through him in a quick, terrible, icy shudder, followed by a warm flood of relief. Because Roger is right. No matter what secrets he might have hidden away, he wouldn’t have kept Freddie in the dark about something like that. Not when he spent long months agonizing over every sniffle, every little purplish bruise. “But then why…” He gestures at the book. Why would he leave you something so personal, so blatantly sexual like this?

Roger ducks his head, looking a bit caught out. He clears his throat and picks up the Brandy again. “Remember back when it all started with us? _The Game_ tour? When it was all such a bloody confusing mess?”

_Endless parties stretching from one night into the other. Rushed blowjobs in men’s rooms. Cold morning afters. “I want you to fuck me tonight.” Thor and Marlene, revolving around them like distant moons. Heated stares that could be jealousy or desire. Bruising kisses and bright smiles. Carefree nights out turning into fights. Fights turning into something else. “Just something we had to get out of our system.” Something else turning into jagged hurt. All those desperate attempts to get back to what they once had._

Despite everything, Freddie can’t help but smile. How could he forget?

“I told him,” Roger says.

Freddie’s eyebrows shoot up. “You told someone about us?” 

Roger shakes his head. “Not about us, or well, not until the very end at least, but about _me_. About how I had no idea what was happening, how…” Roger takes a moment to get it out. “How frightened I was to fuck it all up. To fuck us up.”

Now Freddie needs a drink, too. “Did it help?” He sucks his lips into his mouth, sucking off the last of the sweet-sharp Brandy taste. 

Roger smiles ruefully. “Didn’t keep me from fucking up. But in the long run, yes. Yes it helped.”

Slowly, Freddie can feel some of the tension he’s been holding seep out of him. Still, it doesn’t actually explain anything. “But why the book,” he repeats.

Roger shrugs. “I guess he thought it was funny. Perhaps he thought it might help. He liked to tease me. ‘Proud of you, straight boy,’ was one of the last things he said to me, when I finally fessed up.”

“At the end?” 

“In the hospital. When it was clear that…” Roger breaks off. “I just felt he deserved to know.”

Freddie nods. If it had been anyone else that Roger had told, without his knowledge or consent, and before even Brian and John got to know, it would have felt like a betrayal. But it’s different like this, when a friend’s life is ending like that, in agony and long before its time.

Still, there is one nagging question still itching at the back of his mind. “Why did you hide it from me?” 

“But I didn’t!” Roger’s blue eyes are wide and open now, imploring Freddie to believe him.

“Of course you did!” Freddie feels his heckles raise. He doesn’t trust this peace, the offended innocence in Roger’s voice.

“Freddie, do you really think that I’d hide my secrets right on my desk?”

“What secrets?” Freddie rises up on his knees, thoughts swirling. 

“Well, my wife, three kids, and my enormously successful Death Metal band are all in a storage unit in Croydon,” Roger fumes. “My used-undies business runs out of Brian’s attic, and when I get the urge to moonlight as a stripper, I do that in-” He tries to go on even from behind the press of Freddie’s palm and over the din of his enraged shouts, but then just starts to laugh. 

“Don’t you dare make fun of this,” Freddie hisses. “You never told me about the book, or let me see it.”

“It was right there on my bookshelf!“

“No, it wasn’t!” Was it?

“You can ask John, he immediately commented on it.”

“I will!” 

“Please do, he’ll be delighted!” Roger settles down again. “Alright, so I was a bit embarrassed about it at first,” he admits. “I put it in a suitcase I didn’t unpack for half a year, and when I did, it was when we were… when there was that break.” They exchange an embarrassed glance. Of all their ‘breaks’, this one in ‘83 was probably the most unnecessary. “Anyway, I put it on my bookshelf and didn’t think about it much any more. But it was right there the whole time. You must have walked past it dozens of times.”

Freddie eyes him sceptically. “Is that so?” He desperately tries to remember seeing something like this in Roger’s town house. “Hm.” Freddie sniffs at Roger’s imploring look. “Perhaps I should pay more attention to the contents of your bookshelves.”

“You should. Who knows what else you might learn about me.”

Freddie can’t help a small smile. “And your secret Death Metal band.”

“The clues have been there all along.” Roger sits back against the headboard and pours them both another finger of Brandy. 

Freddie lets his fingertips run over the embossed letters on the cover of the book, when he remembers another thing. He picks it up and flips to the graphic illustration of the blond man with the ‘Look at us’-note. “So what about this then? Why would Dino…” Before he can finish the question, an image of blond James, Dino’s long-time partner, appears before his mind’s eye. “Oh,” he says, and closes the book again, sheepishly. 

“Yes.” Roger clears his throat. “I try not to read the annotations. They’re a bit, er, intimate.”

Freddie feels a bit rotten for having done little else tonight. “But have you read it? The book?” 

Roger’s cheeks take on a bit of colour. He’d blame it on the Brandy, of course, if asked. “Some sections. It’s been helpful.” 

Freddie narrows his eyes. “Which sections?”

Roger rolls his eyes. “Guess,” he grumbles, while Freddie opens the book again and skims through the table of contents. 

“Bisexuality?” 

“Yes.”

“Hmm… First Time?” 

“That too.”

His curiosity piqued by the bashful smile on Roger’s face, Freddie flicks to that entry. _“Throughout history men have fucked one another and relished the experience,”_ he reads out the first sentence. He looks at Roger with a smug grin. “ _I_ could have told you this.” He turns his gaze back to the page, skimming the section on self-exploration: _“Once your finger gets beyond the inner sphincter, you’ll notice the change in texture. Move your finger in and out a couple of inches at a time. If you’ve been fearful about anal penetration until now, you’ll be amazed how easy this is.”_ He can’t help but giggle as he imagines Roger following those instructions, book propped up on the edge of the bathtub and cursing as his reading glasses keep fogging up.

“Haha, yes, very funny,” Roger grouses.

 _“Remove your finger, breathe deeply, and relax. Tell yourself out loud that you’re coming along beautifully.”_ Freddie can barely finish the sentence before he doubles down with laughter. 

“I did it for you, you tit,” Roger yells and smites him with a pillow, but he can’t quite hide the huge grin on his face.

“I did it for love,” Freddie belts out in between gasps for breath, while joy fuelled by boundless relief courses through him. “Ohhhh, I did it for love!” He lets himself flop down on the bed in a dramatic gesture. 

“You’re an ungrateful prat, you know tha- hmpf.” Roger is cut off as Freddie pulls him down into a kiss, grabbing his t-shirt greedily with both hands.

“You should have let me watch,” Freddie whispers against Roger’s lips. 

“Over my dead body.” Roger nips at his upper lip, his tongue flicking out, and Freddie’s elation gets a twist for the erotic.

He buries one hand in Roger’s hair and lets his other wander down to his arse, blatantly copping a feel. It takes all of a second before Roger gets on with the programme and shifts so his thigh lands between Freddie’s legs, a tentative press, but no less welcome. 

“Been a while since we’ve done that,” Freddie murmurs, letting the suggestion hover around them.

“Hmm,” Roger hums, pausing the series of kisses he’d been pressing to Freddie’s neck. “You break into my study, you rummage through my desk, you steal my brandy and my cigarettes…”

“That you are not even supposed to have.” Freddie gets a light warning bite for that.  
He turns his head further to the side, trying to encourage Roger to continue his exploration. 

“...then you make fun of my efforts to be a good lover for you, and now, after all this, you want to have your wicked way with me?” 

Freddie pushes the bulge that is forming in his sweat pants into Roger’s hip in a wordless ‘yes, that’s exactly what’s going on.’ Not that he isn’t open to other ideas.

“You’ve got some nerve,” Roger whispers into his skin, sending a shiver of goosebumps over Freddie’s neck and chest. Then his face hovers above Freddie’s for a second, his mussed hair glowing around him like a halo in the lamplight. “But then you’ve always had.”

“Is that a yes then,” Freddie asks impatiently, tugging at Roger’s shoulders. 

He gets a chuckle and a not very sexy smooch right on the lips for that. Freddie tries to keep him close to turn this into something more, but Roger breaks off with a whispered, “Patience, my love.” The endearment sends a warm ripple through Freddie’s chest, which is dampened when Roger firmly pulls away and sits back up. “I don’t think we’re quite done here,” he says. 

“I dare say we’re not,” Freddie grumbles and puts on his best smouldering eyes, the ones that always have Roger reaching for him before he even realises he’s moving.

Roger looks tempted for a second, the tip of his tongue touching his teeth in a gesture that tells Freddie exactly what he’s thinking about. But then he shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair. “I, er… there’s something else I should tell you, I guess.” 

“Well, if you must,” Freddie pouts. And if you wouldn’t rather have _this_ , he adds silently as he absent-mindedly trails a hand over his hips.

Roger’s gaze follows his hand for one encouraging moment before he averts his eyes. He picks up his glass and nervously worries his lip for a moment. “I didn’t think it mattered much at the time, but now it would feel as if I’m hiding something from you, if I didn’t tell you.” After a second’s hesitation, he reaches for the cigarettes on the night stand. 

“Now you have me a little worried,” Freddie jokes nervously. Or perhaps it’s not much of a joke. He doesn’t want to hear… whatever it is that Roger thought wasn’t important, except now apparently it is. He wants to keep Roger’s ‘There wasn’t another man ever’ without qualifications. 

“Nothing happened,” Roger says as he twirls a cigarette between his dexterous fingers, still unlit. “But there was this one time…”

“What,” Freddie snaps, pushing himself up onto his elbows as anxiety ties his stomach into knots. Can’t he just spit it out? Must he torture him so?

“I came on to him one night. To Dino.” Roger’s got a petulant expression now, one that dares Freddie to make a comment. “That summer, when everything was… you know. I was pretty fucked up at the time, and he called me an arsehole and kicked me out of the car. Or no, he pretty much jumped out of the car.”

Whatever Freddie had expected it wasn’t this. He gapes at Roger, trying to wrap his head around it all. “He said ‘no’?” 

Roger does a double take. “What, _that’s_ the part that you want to discuss?” 

Freddie’s a bit surprised at that himself. But perhaps it’s just easier to tackle that bit first. “He wanted to get a taste of you ever since he chatted you up at the Mineshaft.” 

“Actually, I… Oh no, you’re right. He did chat me up.” Roger looks caught off guard by that bit of information. Dear Lord, sometimes he is still just as clueless as that first time when he accompanied Freddie to a gay club. 

Freddie rolls onto his front and props his chin up on his hands, settling in. “So what happened?” 

“It was after my birthday party. Where you were so thoughtfully parading your new lover around in front of me.” Roger has the gall to give him the stink eye. 

Oh yes, Thor. Just thinking about the way Roger had glared at him when they first met puts an excited prickle in Freddie’s belly. “Hm, was that before or after you had your girlfriend flown in from bloody Germany?” 

Roger puts on a faux-thoughtful expression. “Germany, yes, that’s exactly where she had fucked off to again just the day before. After she dumped me. Because I spent all my time thinking about you.”

“Oh.” Freddie’s recollection of that eventful time is a bit muddled. “Sorry,” he concedes with a put-upon sigh. “How rude of me.”

Roger grins ruefully. “Especially since you blew me in a broom closet the night before.” 

Freddie waggles his eyebrows. “How nice of me.”

“So, long story short, we were in the car, Dino made a couple of suggestive comments, I offered to suck him off, he said no. So that’s really all that-”

“You offered to suck him off?” Freddie gapes at Roger. It has all been mildly amusing if unexpected until now, but this… “You didn’t blow me for another three fucking years!” 

“Well, I didn’t suck him off either, as it turns out.” After just fiddling with the cigarette the whole time, now Roger reaches for the lighter. 

On impulse, Freddie sits up and snatches the cigarette from between his lips and tosses it into a corner. He is not in the mood to indulge him any more. “But you would have?” he gripes. “Back then when you could barely look at my cock without blushing like a maiden? You’d have gone to your knees in the back of a fucking car?”

“I never blushed like a-” Roger breaks off and flicks the lighter on and off a couple of times, clearly trying to keep calm. “It was a very confusing time, alright? I was… confused.”

So confused that he would have rather had sex with some doe-eyed leather twink from Queens than with Freddie. Suddenly, the book takes on a rather sinister look again. 

Roger puts the lighter away and lies down next to Freddie with a sigh. “It’s not like I was into him,” he says, to which Freddie merely scoffs. “No, it’s true. I…” He traces his fingers over Freddie’s arm. “There’s only ever been you.” 

As determined as he was to keep his eyes fixed on the wall, Freddie can’t help but turn his head towards Roger at that. There are some lines around his eyes these days, some chub to his cheeks, but when he says things like that, _looks_ at Freddie like that, he’s still as breathtaking as the night when they first kissed. Perhaps more. 

Freddie shakes his head. “Then why-”

“I thought if I hated it, it would somehow help me keep my hands off you.” Roger lets his fingers glide down Freddie’s arm until he can squeeze his hand. “I don’t think it would have.”

That smile, that caress, Roger’s simple admission, they all make Freddie’s irritation melt away like chocolate in a cup of hot milk. He lets himself sink down on the bed, coming to lie on his back with his hands folded behind his head. 

But then the implications of what Roger said sink in, and he has to make sure that this is indeed what Roger just told him. He raises his head again. “Wait. You wanted to suck cock to prove that you weren’t gay.”

“That’s exactly what Dino said, too,” Roger mumbles a bit sheepishly. “Er, yes.”

Freddie shakes his head. “Sometimes I wonder how you manage to tie your shoe laces in the morning.”

“Hey.” Roger nudges him with his elbow. “It’s not like you didn’t do stupid shit.”

“Nothing of that calibre.”

Roger coughs something that sounds suspiciously like ‘Detroit’ under his breath, but he’s also sneaked his fingertips under the hem of Freddie’s shirt, and is trailing them lightly over his skin, just above the waistband of his pants. If it’s a conscious attempt to distract him, Freddie has to admit it’s clever. 

He looks away and tries to put on a haughty expression. He makes no move to deter the promising exploration of Roger’s fingers, however. “Anything else you have to confess?”

“Hm.” Roger considers that for a moment. “Nah,” he says finally, and then, before Freddie can be too reassured, adds: “I think I’ll save the rest for a special occasion.”

Freddie’s mouth falls open in an indignant gasp, which must be exactly what Roger was waiting for, because suddenly his lips are hot and wet against Freddie’s, swallowing up his protests. He finds himself rolled onto his side by Roger’s practised hands, their legs tangling and pulling them both closer together. 

“Is _that_ a yes, then,” Freddie asks, picking up the thread from earlier, before Roger decided it was time for this little confession. 

“Honestly, I’m not sure I’m up for that tonight.” Roger slides a hand up the back of Freddie’s thigh until his fingers rest in the crease right under his bum. “Are you?” 

Freddie feels the familiar pull in his groin at Roger’s lustful advances. “Hmm,” he muses, stalling for time even while he’s pressing his bottom into Roger’s hand - a pair of mixed signals, as suggestive as they are ambiguous. He likes it when Roger asks twice. And Roger likes it, too. 

And it works like a charm. “I really want you,” Roger rasps into his ear while he goes into all out seduction mode. “And it’s been ages.”

“Barely two weeks,” Freddie laughs. And it’s not like they haven’t done anything else in the meantime. 

“ _Ages,_ ” Roger rasps and rolls Freddie onto his back, swallowing his gasp in a kiss.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the most frequent comments I got on For the Day I Take Your Hand was "adfjghsdgkhslk just _talk_ to each, you idiots!", so I thought I'd give you all a bit more of that ;)
> 
> Thank you so much, @nastally, my wonderful beta, for being always positive, always insightful, always a treasure 💖

“Perhaps it’s time for something else we haven’t done in a while,” Roger muses, looking after the trail of smoke he’s just breathed out.

It’s four in the morning now, and Freddie is in no state to deny him this forbidden pleasure. Although he will seize and destroy any remaining contraband in the morning, just out of principle. For now, he contents himself with idly running his fingers through the hair on Roger’s chest. In an unexpected but very welcome development, it has become much denser in recent years, and spreading out more as well. “And what is that,” he asks distractedly.

Roger reaches for his Brandy, pouring them another finger each. “Talk.”

“Again?” Freddie huffs and rolls onto his back, letting his arms splay out in a dramatic gesture of displeasure. Roger chooses to be infuriatingly pragmatic about it and simply puts the snifter into his hand. “Why, in God’s name, would you want to do that?”

“It’s a good idea from time to time, don’t you think?”

“Oh darling, must we?” Freddie looks up pleadingly at Roger, who’s sitting up against the head of the bed with a pillow behind his back.

Roger’s gaze softens and he leans forward to brush a loose eyelash off Freddie’s cheek. “I think we should,” he says quietly. “Sometimes I think I have you all figured out, and then you do something or say something that makes me realise I have no idea what’s going on in there.” He taps his finger against Freddie’s forehead.

Freddie presses a quick kiss to his hand before it is taken away. Roger has become so good at understanding his moods, his needs, that Freddie sometimes allows himself to believe that he won’t have to spell things out ever again. But there are those moments when a disconnect breaks open, and they are both left reeling at the size of the gap that is suddenly revealed between them, despite being covered for so long. And when Roger tells him what he was thinking, or what he thought Freddie was thinking, it sometimes sounds as if they had been living on different planets all along. But after, despite the hurt and the difficulty, it feels like they orbit that little bit closer together.

“So,” Roger says, sending Freddie a glance that isn’t half as stern as he probably wishes. He just doesn’t have the face for it. He can do joy and curiosity and boredom and rage, but he isn’t built for severity. “What was your grand theory then? About the book.”

“I’m not sure I can even say,” Freddie shrugs. It’s not like he had been _thinking_ much.

“Let me hazard a guess. It was that years ago I conducted a secret affair with another man through covert notes in a book?”

Freddie bristles at the way Roger makes it sound ridiculous. “It’s not _that_ absurd,” he points out. “Knowing you and your,” he sniffs, “sluttish ways.”

“My what?” Roger splutters on his mouthful of brandy.

“Oh, you know.” Freddie does his best to imitate Roger’s husky voice. “‘Do you want a list of their names now?’”

Roger raises his eyebrows. “Pot, kettle.”

Freddie wipes that away with a flick of his hand. “And with you being out alone and… having been out alone _a lot_ these past weeks…”

“Brian’s marriage is imploding and his dad’s dying of cancer, for god’s sake.”

“Yes, I know, I’m not… It’s _fine_ , I just.” I’m needy and pathetic and sometimes it feels like no one is ever going to understand me and all the accolades in the world can’t make up for it. God, this is horrid. Freddie empties his glass although he’s really not in the mood for it and remembers why they have a policy of not talking about difficult things. But then, perhaps it’s not that difficult. Perhaps it’s all rather simple. “I just like it better when you’re here.”

“I like it best here, too. Or rather, wherever you are.” Roger catches his eye and they share a soppy smile, one that Roger breaks first, as he always does, looking away and clearing his throat. “But I can’t have that all the time. I need to go out, see things, move about, meet people.”

“I know,” Freddie says quietly. “It’s like that for me, too.” Except, if he’s honest, it’s a bit frightening how attached he has become to this place, to the handful of trusted friends that go in and out as they please, to nights on the sofa with Roger by his side. He still breaks away now and then, but it’s so much more domestic than anything he had envisioned three or four years ago. Perhaps it’s age catching up to him, the need to rest between the whirlwind pace of touring and the backbreaking work of recording. “I don’t begrudge you your freedoms.” He chews on his bottom lip, trying to find the courage to go on. There’s that dreadful word building at the base of his tongue, rounding his lips in anticipation. ‘I don’t begrudge you your freedoms, _but_...’ And then how is he going to follow that up?

He decides it’s wiser to swallow it back down, to relax his lips and pretend that’s all he had to say. Roger doesn’t respond either, and for a while they just lie there in silence. Freddie wonders if that is it, if this is as far as this talk will take them. If he can sort through it later, pick up the bits he liked and ignore everything around it. It works well enough, after all. Not everything can be resolved. And wouldn’t that be frightfully boring, too?

Roger’s hand comes down on his head, fingers carding gently through his hair. It’s enough, Freddie thinks, what they have. As long as it always comes back to this, it’ll be enough.

Just as his eyes are drifting shut, Roger breaks the silence. “Do you want us to stop?”

“Stop what,” Freddie murmurs, pretending to be half-asleep although that question has jolted him wide awake.

“You know what.”

Yes, he does. And he wants nothing more than to say yes, because it hurts more than he can say sometimes, but also to say no, because at other times it is exactly what he needs. And besides, it _works_ this system they’ve got, doesn’t it? Isn’t that worth the occasional hiccup? Isn’t it better than setting them both up for failure?

“You can be honest,” Roger prompts him, absent-mindedly trailing his fingers over the outlines of his face, his cheek, his jaw. “We should be able to talk about this.”

Well, if Freddie’s honest. If he’s _really_ honest… “What if I only asked you to stop.” 

Roger holds his breath for a moment. “ _Are_ you asking me?” 

“What if I did?”

“No.” Roger shakes his head. “No, we’re not doing that. You can ask, and I’ll give you my answer. Or you don’t.”

The fact that Roger is taking this so seriously, that he’s actually treating this as a question deserving of an answer, instead of a selfish, arrogant demand that isn’t even worthy of consideration, is somehow all he needs to know. “No, I’m not,” he mutters.

Roger’s fingers wander down the side of his neck, featherlight, just like his voice when he asks, “Both of us then?”

But now Freddie feels it’s time for Roger to stick his neck out and answer first. “Would you want that?”

“No.”

Freddie nods. Of course. He knew this.

“It helps, sometimes,” Roger says. “When everything goes crazy on tour, or we can’t stand each other after being cooped up in the studio for weeks. Or when I feel a bit dull, a bit old. When everything turns washed out and grey.”

“Yes.” It’s not what Freddie wants to hear, which is ‘You are enough, always and forever’, but he of all people has no right to demand that. Not when he knows so well what Roger is talking about - the buzz of catching someone staring at him with intent for the first time, the wordless negotiation in the darkness of a bar, the back of a car, the anonymity of a hotel bed.

And then there’s the other side of it. Knowing that he can make Roger seethe with jealousy, that he’ll be all too happy to prove to Freddie how much he cares. Despite their earlier love-making, the thought alone sends a delightful shiver down his spine.

“And it’s not that often these days,” Roger continues with a rueful chuckle. “I’m not in my twenties any more.”

“You were a menace,” Freddie reminisces. “How you found the time for drumming at all was a bit of a mystery to us all.”

“Yeah,” Roger sighs. He sounds so wistful that Freddie pokes him in the ribs, just to remind him that there’s only one person he’s allowed to get that dreamy about. “Oi!” Roger takes his hand and flattens it against his belly with his own on top. “Not that you were any better once you really got going.”

No. It would be preposterous to deny it, and not only because Roger was there to witness parts of it.

“Thing is though,” Roger continues, “I don’t want to make you jealous. Or have you worry about it. Because it’s not a game for you, is it?”

Occasionally, Roger astounds him by making an offhand remark that perfectly encapsulates something Freddie has been feeling, but couldn’t ever have put into words. Because that’s what it is. Whenever he’s flirting with someone, whether with intent for more or not, he knows it’s playful, not serious, just a bit of fun. A game he plays with himself and sometimes with Roger.

But he can’t possibly think about it like that when Roger does the same. He tried, God knows he tried, but it’s impossible. It’s a threat, always, to the very core of his being. A threat to _them_. “I can’t help it,” he says finally, like he’s admitting to some embarrassing bad habit he can’t kick.

“What can I do then? Tell you about it? Not tell you about it? Pretend it doesn’t happen?”

Everything draws together tightly inside Freddie at the thought of having to listen to Roger calmly confess to a one-night-stand over the phone or at the breakfast table. But never knowing when it happens, being excluded from that entire side of him, wouldn’t be any better.

And then there is still that part of him that enjoys seeing Roger desiring and being desired, that expression on his face when he decides he’s going to pull tonight, full of confidence and intent.

Freddie rolls his eyes at himself. Why must everything about him always be so complicated?

Roger’s thumb draws circles over his knuckles. “Anything to make it easier?”

“Perhaps-” Freddie breaks off before he blurts out the thought that just sprang to his mind, fully formed. Because it’s not something that Roger will want to hear. It’s not something Freddie wants to say. It sounds so horribly bourgeois, the opposite of Rock ‘n’ Roll.

“Yes?”

“Perhaps if there were… some…” Preparing himself mentally for Roger’s mockery, he clears his throat before the last distasteful word. “Rules.”

“What do you have in mind?”

Freddie raises his head to look at Roger. To check if it’s truly still Roger (it is). The man who considers speed limits a personal attack and will order white wine with steak just to see the expression on the face of some waiter he considers snobby.

“What?” Roger frowns at him. “This is about us, this is important. We have rules for sex too, and they only made it better.”

As much as Freddie is loath to admit it, and as silly as the idea sounded to him at first, Roger had been right about that. It allows them to explore farther and deeper than Freddie would have thought possible, or even desirable. “Just making sure I haven’t accidentally shagged your brains out.”

“Glad to hear you admit I have any in the first place.”

“Won’t happen again.”

“What, shagging?” This turns into a bit of playful jostling that might have developed into something more if it weren’t the end of a long night and both of them fast approaching their dreaded middle ages.

“Well then,” Roger says once they've settled down again. “Lay down the law.”

Although Freddie hasn’t ever thought about it consciously before, he knows immediately what he wants to ask for. “Not someone we know,” he starts. “No one more than once. And that I can ask you not to for a night or so. Exceptions for threesomes might apply,” he adds formally.

There’s no direct response from Roger. Freddie squeezes his eyes shut, wishing he’d done the same with his mouth. “It’s too much, I know,” he mumbles. “But you asked, so…” Why does Roger ask when he doesn’t want to hear the answer? Why is he setting this kind of trap for him? It’s unfair. “Forget it. Let’s just-”

“Wait, no.” Roger gently holds on to his arm, keeping him from turning away. “I’m just surprised.”

“What did you expect?” Freddie grumbles. “Only blondes on Thursdays?”

“What? No!” Roger laughs, as if there were anything funny about this. “It’s just that I thought that’s what we’ve been doing all along. You know.”

That in turn has Freddie stunned. “You… oh.”

“I mean, we never discussed it like that. But I assumed… Well, I just assumed. Dangerous business.”

This is not the direction Freddie expected this to go. It’s good news, great news of course, but there’s something inside him that’s a bit disappointed too. Here he thought Roger was prepared to make a sacrifice for him - only to find out he didn’t even consider it one?

“And about asking me to not pick anyone up - you could have done that any time.”

“I… could?”

“Of course! I mean, not every night, perhaps. But any of them.”

Freddie has a flashback to a drunk discussion way, way back, between Brian and one of their flatmates at Ferry Road about the stupidity of playing the lottery. ‘Yes, of course, _any_ one can win,’ he had roared, at the end of his tether, ‘but not _every_ one, otherwise it cannot work!’ Freddie smiles at the memory. Always so easily riled up.

Speaking of which. “So if you head out to visit Brian…”

“...you can ask me not to shag him. In that case, every time, even,” Roger deadpans.

“I mean when you two go out to the pub…”

“Freddie, he’s a depressed, soon-to-be divorcee and-”

“Oh, so you’re calling it?” Roger had been on the fence about whether Brian would actually work up the courage to leave Chrissy.

“Yeah, they’re reaching the end of the line. Either he’ll move out, or she’ll serve him the papers before the end of the year.”

“Huh.” It’s a relief, really. Both of them have been needlessly torturing themselves for years, in Freddie’s opinion. And how good can it be for the children if both parents are barely on speaking terms?

Roger brings them back on track. “Anyway, you’re severely overestimating his usefulness as a wing man.”

“You’re evading the question.”

“Sorry, what _is_ the question?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Freddie flops onto his back and crosses his arms over his chest. How is he supposed to know?

“Then how can I be evading it?”

“I don’t know!” Freddie yells. “But you are.”

Roger rolls around, places his head on Freddie’s belly and looks up at him with a fond smile. “Alright, look. When I go out with Brian, you can ask me not to chat up any girls, should we miraculously end up in the vicinity of some. And I’ll promise you. And I’ll keep that promise.”

Roger’s tone, his expression, his body language, they all clearly say, ‘I have no idea why this in particular is so important to you, you exasperating, baffling man. But I’ll cater to it anyway. Because...’

“Why?” It’s not enough to see it in his face, he wants to hear it.

Roger’s eyebrows rise as he tries to work it out. “Because you asked me to?”

Close, but not quite there. “Why,” he repeats.

“Because I want to make you happy,” Roger says slowly.

Freddie can barely contain the smile threatening to break out. “ _Why_?”

He can see the moment Roger understands, the way his frown disappears and his gaze becomes even softer than before. “Because I love you very much.”

“There,” Freddie says, as he settles back with a contented sigh. “Was that so hard?”

Roger presses his face into his stomach and grumbles something about him being an impossible, ungrateful prat. Freddie chides him for tickling him, which only prompts Roger to do it more and on purpose, until he is blowing raspberries on Freddie’s belly and Freddie is shrieking with laughter and begging him to stop.

“You know what I haven’t done in a really long time,” Freddie asks, once he’s got his breath back.

Roger lifts his head to look up at him with a beseeching expression. “Tomorrow,” he says. “You can have me any which way you want tomorrow, but tonight I’m pleading old age and one hell of a long day and-”

“ _Slept_ ,” Freddie says with a smirk, which is quickly forced off by a wide yawn. “It’s been _ages_ ,” he drawls, and although it’s mainly meant to tease Roger, it’s also a truth he feels in every bone of his ageing body.

They settle in, Roger’s back to his front, because Roger can’t stand to have all that hair in his face, and Freddie knows nothing better than to breathe in the scent from the crook of his neck as he drifts off. “Love you too,” he mutters quietly, listening to Roger’s snuffling that will, in a minute or two, turn into the most adorable - or annoying, depending on his mood - little snore.

~~~

Freddie’s fingers carefully trace over the spine of the book as he aligns it with the others on the shelf. It takes another couple of tiny adjustments, but then he is finally satisfied with the arrangement. He takes a step back to admire his handiwork - only to stumble over Goliath, who is lazily stretching on the carpet behind him. “Silly thing,” he chides as he picks him up.

The air in the sitting room is chilly, but the sun has finally broken through the clouds, its rays warm on Freddie’s back. Lumbering footsteps from above tell him that Roger just got up, sure to be joining him down here soon.

The light catches on the silver letters.

What a beautiful day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks everyone for reading and prompting! I hope you had fun with this glimpse into their post-1986, pre-2021 relationship 😊❤️ 
> 
> And now I'm going to take a little writing break (apart from the last two chapters of [Quarantined to Blow Your Mind](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27761446)). 2020 has been very productive for me, but now I need a bit of time to recharge my creative energy. Until the next plot bunny gets a hold of me at least 😉


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